Some Texas children with special needs like Addison have lost critical services since the state implemented $350 million in Medicaid cuts to speech, occupational and physical therapy in December. In Texas, reimbursement offered to providers fell up to 50 percent for certain therapy procedures, said Rachel Hammon, president of Texas Association of Homecare and Hospice. Clinics closed and therapists quit.

My son Jordan required years of physical and occupational therapy just so he could walk down a flight of stairs safely and hold a pencil properly. He still has speech therapy twice a week because in addition to autism, he also suffers from speech apraxia. Fortunately for us, Jordan is only moderately impacted by his autism but even so, the services he gets are absolutely vital to his continued progress. If we had to pay for these services out of pocket, we’d be looking at tens of thousands of dollars a year, well beyond our ability to pay. Without them, Jordan would still be locked inside of himself, unable to speak.

In Texas, Republicans decided that those who couldn’t afford services for their special needs children would just have to deal with it. C’est la vie, peasants. They weren’t forced to do this, they simply despise the idea of Medicaid for poor people. Now, Trump and the Republicans want to force every state to make similar decisions by cutting billions in Medicaid funding. Why? So they can pay for a massive trillion dollar tax cut for the rich.

As usual, Republicans are using phony claims of “widespread fraud” to cut services while making wet mouth noises about how they want don’t want to hurt any children. The result, of course, is that they are doing just that anyway and they don’t really care. But this is the kind of soulless monster the GOP has become.

I'm a stay at home dad, father to a special needs son and a special daughter, a donor baby daddy, a militantly pragmatic liberal, the president of the PTA, a hardcore geek and nerd and I'm going to change the world. Or at least my corner of it.